QPR manager Neil Warnock: Don’t mention Carlos Tevez

On Sunday Neil Warnock will come face to face with Sir Alex Ferguson in a
Premier League dugout for the first time since he was struck off the
Scotsman’s Christmas card list because of his criticisms of Manchester
United during the Carlos Tévez affair four years ago.

Reason to smile: Neil Warnock is relishing his second chance at Premier League management with QPRPhoto: GETTY IMAGES

“It’s been a few years since I had one,” he admits. “But when I see Cathy [Ferguson’s wife] I have a nice chat with her. I was struck off his Christmas card list, OK. But it doesn’t take away my admiration for him.”

That admiration for Ferguson is stronger than ever. “There will never be a manager as good as him ever again, make no mistake,” he says. And maybe, just maybe, the Premier League will never see a manager like Neil Warnock again, either.

“When I get down people tell me, ‘Gaffer, you are one of only four English managers in the Premier League’,” he explains, a mix of pride, humour and resilience in his distinctive voice.

“And it’s hard to think, here’s a ------ chiropodist [his chosen profession after his player career finished and before he went into management] from Sheffield, a steelworker’s son managing in the Premier League.”

Twice during this interview he admits to having had tears in his eyes during the events of last season and the summer — when Queens Park Rangers’ promotion was threatened over the inquiry into midfielder Alejandro Faurlin’s transfer (a bitter irony through rules introduced post-Tévez) and then whether the club’s previous owners were going to sack him despite having gained that promotion.

“It was like, ‘everyone’s ganging up on me’,” he says. “I spent the whole summer with my hands tied behind my back thinking, ‘Why me?’ Not only that, I was thinking, ‘Why me — twice!’ There were a few times when I felt like crying, to be honest.”

It is evident that he remains deeply affected by his last Premier League campaign, when he took Sheffield United into the top flight only for that dream to die on the final day of the 2006-07 season.

“We only went down by one goal [difference] and we had the Tévez thing,” he recalls of that traumatic May day as if it scarred his soul.

The “Tévez thing” resulted in a huge fine — but no points deduction for West Ham, who stayed up — over the issue of third-party ownership, while Warnock incurred Ferguson’s wrath after criticising United for fielding a weakened team on that final day when they lost at home to West Ham. Who else but Tévez scored the only goal.

“No, I will never get over it,” Warnock says. “But I did laugh when I saw Kia [Joorabchian, Tévez’s adviser] a while ago and I suggested he got Tévez to play for us next year as a favour to me – because he cost me millions.

"I like West Ham, I’ve no problem with West Ham. I just felt let down by the Premier League.”

That is the Premier League organisation — not the league he manages in. He loves that, craves that and is now still working, aged 63 and having promised his family he would retire by now, because he has unfinished business there.

“I wanted one more go,” he says. “I was going to retire at Sheffield United but one or two things were said when I left and because of that I was going to get another team. I was going to show them.”

That sense of grievance, too, has always driven him. “I think I was always meant to be the black sheep of football. And I don’t mind that.

"I used to love the non-League clubs in the FA Cup and when I played football [11 years as a self-styled “brainless winger” with the likes of Chesterfield, Rotherham and Hartlepool].

"I didn’t play for the big clubs. I like the underdog and I guess I’ve been that throughout my career.

“I had to do everything from the bottom upwards and I don’t regret it because it made me a better manager. Martin O’Neill did the same.”

That unfinished business took him first to Crystal Palace but the club’s financial plight meant the Premier League dream started to fade. Then QPR — after nine managers in four years — came calling. “I took it for one reason only,” he says. “Amit Bhatia.”

Bhatia is the club’s vice-chairman, and son-in-law of steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, who, after an acrimonious split with former owners Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone, returned to take over with the Malaysian entrepreneur Tony Fernandes.

“They are both like little kids,” Warnock says. “They both want to be supporters — they want to be the manager, they want to be a player.

"The enthusiasm rubs off on you and I have to calm them down and there are not a lot of managers who can say that about their owners. QPR are so lucky to have this ownership.”

Cash has been injected — a flurry of players arrived at the end of August and at least two more permanent deals and two loans are planned for next month — to give Warnock a fighting chance of remaining in the top flight. And a fighting chance is all he is asking for.

Warnock gained promotion last season but, he says, did not enjoy it because of the ownership uncertainty. “I was getting a bit irate,” he admits.

“Getting QPR promoted was the best job I have done my whole life. It was a remarkable achievement and yet I didn’t win manager of the year. I’m the only one that’s happened to.

“We had billionaire owners but we didn’t spend. And then I couldn’t do anything and it was by far the worst summer I have ever had. I was watching Swansea and Norwich sign players left, right and centre and people kept saying ‘no’ to me.”

Nevertheless the troubles — now thankfully over – bonded him with the QPR supporters who, he knew, were sceptical at his appointment in the first place. “Maybe they thought, ‘he’s loud’ or angry or whatever they had heard or read about me — but since I took over they have been absolutely fantastic,” Warnock says.

“It’s almost as if our fans know how far and how fast we have come.

"The highlight of probably my whole career now, apart from winning things, was when I was stood on the touchline at Fulham and we were losing 6-0 [in October] and there’s god knows how many minutes left and our fans start chanting ‘there’s only one Neil Warnock’.”

There were tears, again, Warnock admits.

“I just filled up about it, to be honest,” he says. “I will never forget that for the rest of my life. That’s how I feel about QPR and the fans and why I am there and that’s why we are all going to enjoy every game.”